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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Over the weekend, I attended a Bridal Fair. No, I'm not getting married...LOL :) I went to scout out the show and see if I felt my items would fit in well. My "marketing manager" aka Mom had mentioned that I should check some out and see if I could get a space for next year.

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I was pleasantly surprised to walk in the door and see a very long line of people waiting to get into the show...and this was 45 minutes after the show had started! The place was packed...a great start!

The show was very well laid out also. I knew as a new vendor that I could possibly get one of the booths with less traffic. But I really didn't see a bad booth in the place! There was a nice flow to the whole show and even the booths in the back had prime space because they were by the fashion show part of the event.

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Here is an example of one of the booths. I was afraid that my craft show set up wouldn't be compatible with a higher end show, but they provide all of the things I was afraid I'd need. The curtained backing and the table with skirt are all provided. And the spaces are very comparable in size to a craft show booth at 10'x10'.

One thing I noticed is that most booths had people standing in the aisle ways handing out postcards/business cards as people walked by. That way, even if they didn't get a chance to stop, they still had the vendor's info. So I may have to recruit some help to run my booth. And being a people person is a must. The vendors were talking to you as you walked by and drew you into their booths.

One thing that I really liked is that no one had anything even close to what I do. There was only one booth that offered personalized services and they mostly did screen printing like coozies and mint wrappers. I didn't see any champagne flutes, guest books, table numbers, etc. And no one offered personalized services like I do.

The only downfall is the price tag that comes along with this awesome show. The cost of a booth is more than 10 times what I normally pay for a craft show booth!!! So I will definitely have to be prepared and have all of my ducks in a row if I plan to attend next year! I have so many more wedding ideas I want to get done!

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Have you done any fancy shows like this? I'd love to hear your experiences!!!

I'm doing my first wedding show at the end of the month and I'm FREAKING OUT. (Probably the added pressure of this being my job now, ha ha.) It's called Indie Wed, and it's aimed more at non-traditional brides who want handmade items. You might want to see if there's one in your area to check out!

I'm glad the scope out went so well, and it's great that you don't have that much competition there. I would hope that a booth fee like that would even itself out as your orders would most likely be larger anyway (hopefully!!).

It sounds like a great opportunity and a good fit, especially since you won't have a lot of competition. I haven't done any really big shows like this because of the price tag. I agree with Nancy that I would hope you'd get enough orders to make it worthwhile. It seems a good possibility with shows like the one you attended that have such high traffic.

It sounds like the perfect venue for your beautiful and unique items. Good plan to scope it out, now you know exactly what you need to do when you sign up to do one next year. The initial cost may be more then your are used to, but the return will be well worth it!ValerieEveryday Inspired

Your items would fit in perfectly! And yes, lots of help would be ideal. My photographer friend and his business partners usually have about 5 or 6 people at each event like this. Having people hand out flyers is definitely a good idea. On those flyers, you could include a discount or "special gift" if they order. Sure, you'd be losing a small profit, but just imagine the number of people it could potentially draw in!-NicoleKnit, Nicole, Knit!